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OVER THE BRAZIER BY ROBERT GRAVES
LONDON — THE POETRY
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Poetry by the Same Author
FAIRIES AND FUSILIERS
COUNTRY SENTIMENT
First Printed 1916
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FOREWORD TO NEW EDITION When these poems, written betweenthe ages of fourteen and twenty,first appeared, I was serving inFrance and had no leisure forgetting the final proofs altogether asI wanted them. The same year, buttoo late, I decided on severalalterations in the text, including thesuppression of two small poemsinexcusable even as early work.These amendations appear in thisnew edition, but I have left the bulkof the book as it stood.
Robert Graves.
Harlech,
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THE POET IN THE NURSERY The youngest poet down the shelves was fumbling
In a dim library, just behind the chair
From which the ancient poet was mum-mumbling
A song about some Lovers at a Fair,
Pulling his long white beard and gently grumbling
That rhymes were beastly things and never there.
And as I groped, the whole time I was thinking
About the tragic poem I'd been writing—
An old man's life of beer and whisky drinking,
His years of kidnapping and wicked fighting;
And how at last, into a fever sinking,
Remorsefully he died, his bedclothes biting.
But suddenly I saw the bright green cover
Of a thin pretty book right down below;
I snatched it up and turned the pages over,
To find it full of poetry, and so
Put it down my neck with quick hands like a lover
And turned to watch if the old man saw it go.
The book was full of funny muddling mazes
Each rounded off into a lovely song,
And most extraordinary and monstrous phrases
Knotted with rhymes like a slave-driver's thong,
And metre twisting like a chain of daisies
With great big splendid words a sentence long.
I took the book to bed with me and gloated,
Learning the lines that seemed to sound most grand,
So soon the pretty emerald green was coated
With jam and greasy marks from my hot hand,
While round the nursery for long months there floated
Wonderful words no one could understand.
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